Why we can fly
Compared to childbirth, science fiction is children's stuff. You enter the maternity clinic as a couple, two more or less independent people who have come together of their own free will and thought that having a child would be a great thing. And you leave the clinic as a meta-organism, an entity made up of three existentially interdependent personalities, a family for short.
Family. At first, this word is the epitome of bliss. Mum and Dad look at babies all day long, or sink their eyes into each other and smile silently. When mum is breastfeeding, dad goes shopping. He solemnly places a loaf of bread and a packet of Bündnerfleisch in the shopping basket and knows that he would strangle a mammoth with his bare hands for his family if necessary, yes indeed! The days pass, the weeks, the years. And the term family takes on a different flavour. Well-hung, you might say, or even rancid. Family now means restriction, stress, obligation. That happens at some point around the time you realise: You're on a flight through space with an uncertain outcome. For the next few decades, you will have to supply the engines with power and control the systems so that the shuttle doesn't crash.
«Compared to childbirth, science fiction is child's play.»
Everyone is each other's destiny and sometimes you wonder how that's supposed to work, because in all the hullabaloo you can sometimes barely remember who the hell you actually are. But that doesn't really matter any more. What counts is the role you play in the family. One realisation is unavoidable on the journey. Humans are weak and make a hell of a lot of mistakes. It's amazing that he can manage something like a space flight at all. But they also have secret powers.
My children love Monster Quartet, for example. It's a game in which monsters compete against each other and test their different abilities. Sometimes they have fun thinking of our family as a collection of monsters. The daughter has a smart arse factor of 150, the father a scolding quotient of 75 per cent. The brother has an annoyance factor of 80 and the mother has a toxicity factor of 10.
We played this game at dinner. When the round had been cancelled and the dishes had been put together, the son said: «But there's also a joker in this quartet. A card that beats all the others.» «I see,» I mumbled, already thinking about the washing up. «Love,» said the son. Love is our joker." I hugged him, touched. Since then, I know why we can fly.
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